Mastercard and Citizens Financial Group Announce Exclusive Payments Partnership

Mastercard and Citizens announced an expanded partnership, making Mastercard the exclusive payments network across Citizens’ credit, debit and commercial portfolios, as well as services provider in the U.S. With shared values and vision, Citizens and Mastercard are united in the goal to provide access, inclusion and innovation to the communities they serve.

“Mastercard is thrilled to enhance our partnership with Citizens to become their exclusive payments provider across all product portfolios,” said Linda Kirkpatrick, president, North America at Mastercard. “We are proud to work with a brand that champions financial empowerment, and we look forward to bringing new products, services and capabilities to complement the strong value proposition Citizens provides to consumers and businesses.”

“Citizens’ recent growth has been fueled by our development of new and innovative customer-centric capabilities,” said Brendan Coughlin, Head of Consumer Banking at Citizens. “Customer expectations around payments are rapidly increasing, and our expanded partnership with Mastercard enables us to accelerate our market position and provide customers with industry-leading solutions and experiences.”

Strengthening and supporting U.S. communities

Together, Mastercard and Citizens will enable consumers and businesses with greater financial access, benefits and experiences. Citizens will leverage Mastercard’s network, technology and services to develop innovative new products and features to support consumer and business payments offerings:

• Empowering small businesses: using unique and specialized tools and resources needed to thrive, Citizens will work with Mastercard to support the health and growth of small businesses in the communities they serve.
• Increasing financial access: leveraging Mastercard’s open banking technology, Citizens will provide consumers and businesses with greater financial access and control over their data.
• Delivering trust in today’s digital economy: with Mastercard’s leading digital identity solutions, Citizens’ consumer and business customers will benefit from cutting edge authentication and fraud mitigation tools.
• Accelerating innovation: Citizens and Mastercard will collaborate to foster advancements in payments technologies, fraud prevention tools and open banking to benefit consumers in the communities where they live and work.
• Commercial digitization: Citizens will utilize Mastercard’s commercial solutions to intelligently optimize and streamline business-to-business payments for today’s digital environment.
• Scaling inclusive payment experiences: with a shared goal to provide choice and optionality to consumers, Citizens and Mastercard will partner to drive inclusive growth across channels and products for customers.
• Connecting Citizens customers to Priceless Experiences: aligning passion and purpose, Citizens customers will receive exclusive access to iconic events, Priceless experiences, and opportunities to participate in purpose-driven initiatives.

Additional details around the partnerships and services availability, including details on new customer cards, will be released later this year.

Source: Mastercard